The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona is the biggest aircraft graveyard in the world.
“The Boneyard” as it is often called was created in 1946 to store some surplus DoD and navy planes but eventually grew to become the storage area for all out-of-service U.S. government aircraft.
It contains over 4000 aircraft including bombers, fighters like the F15 Eagle and F14 Tomcat, huge military transport planes like the C5a Galaxy, helicopters, jump jets as well as unique prototypes which never made it into service.
Interesting Facts about the Boneyard
- Some aircraft are stored for possible reuse, metal reclamation and others to be stripped for spare parts eg: forAustralia’s F-111 strike aircraft
- The climate at Tucson is friendly to aircraft with hard alkaline soil for them to move around on, low humidity and low rainfall. In fact the facility is so good at what it does that for every $1 the US government spends operating the facility, it saves or produces $11
- Under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction talks over 300 B-52 bombers had their wings cut from the fuselage and laid out in the Boneyard as evidence for Soviet satellites passing overhead
- The Boneyard doesn’t just store aircraft. It also stores inactive Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads
Visit the Boneyard
Public tours of the Boneyard are arranged by the adjacent Pima Air & Space Museum. At the time of writing this adult tickets were a mere $US 6.
Advance reservations are strongly recommended to guarantee seating. To make an AMARG tour reservation call PIMA and ask for the reservation desk.
You will need to check in at the Pima Air & Space Museum Store no later than 30 minutes prior to tour departure time or your reservation may be subject to cancellation. The tour bus boards at the Museum entrance.
Tours are given Monday through Friday (excluding US federal holidays) and last approximately one hour. Departure times are seasonal. Please call for current times.
More Information
Click on the image and Zoom in using “Birds Eye View” to view the planes really close up using Microsoft Maps
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Hi, interesting find.
Are you saying that the US stores aircraft in this “boneyard” then Australia buys some of these fighters for our national defence? I know we don’t have a huge defence budget, but buying planes from an American aircraft graveyard???
Thank you Neerav,
I had seen a program on the boneyard years ago. What an incredible place. Nice to know that our F-111s can be kept in the air by using Boneyard ‘offcuts’.
Cheers,
Mark
Hi Neerav,
Great Find.
It is an amazing sight to see for an aircraft enthusiast like me. Do they allow camping overnight? I don’t think I would be able to digest the entire trip in one day
Keep up the good work
EDITOR: No you can’t camp there, only do the bus tour – good idea though
That is way cool. I was in Tucson 4 months ago and I wish I knew about this then. I would have like to have gone on a tour for sure.
Hah that’s a fun picture. Looks like a kid was playing in the dirt with some toy planes.
wow, that overhead photo is crazy. Never have I seen so many planes in one location… They almost look like they’re laid out in a certain way as “art”
If you’re looking for a much closer view have a look at Microsoft Maps aerial view of the boneyard:
I’ve been there. It’s just crazy. The planes go on forever.
amazing! this place looks ace!
This would be a neat place to visit! 4000 aircraft is a lot to see. Can you go inside any of the planes?
I was just wondering if you can purchase any of the planes from the boneyard?
Yeah that is a HUGE aircraft.
It will quite be quite a visual to see so many aircrafts of all sizes around – def make it a pt. to see the facility if around..
I must say. I have found some of the most obscure, yet very intersting posts on “the Road Less Travelled” blog. We lived in Tucson for 10 years and this is the first I am hearing of this. Perhaps we’ll have to go back someday as tourists and see the other half of Tucson!
That place takes forever to drive around. The kids love it though. “Look at the planes! look at the planes!”
We are interested in purchase of some airplanes from the graveyard for setting up a museum of old planes in the Baltic republics.Please let us know the process or guide us to a company who can advise us to purchase for museum.
It must be kind of eery to walk about there amongst all the retired aircraft.
Love to make two seater, tandem style aluminum bodied commuter car like the “Carver” from all that scrap aluminum! Seems like a surplus to me, al it does is collect sun? Put it to good use Yankee Doodle! Build ultralight commuters from it, save on imported oil costs, and help the poor saps in the ‘burbs pay down their McMansion mortgages! go on, Bugs, Do it, it won’t hurt! Promise!
Any of the planes in the graveyard available for sale? I would like to make a 747 into a house on our acreage.
Jeff
Is it possible to buy a plane without the wings attached so a house can be made from it to live in too include the tires to get it to a location. A nice 747 would be cool.
Wish I can go there and bring one here to install a nearest children park as a symbol.
If I want to by a partial plane as a “souvenir” is it possible?
What would be the cost if i stay in Canada.
I was always interested in knowing.
Tank you!
I noticed that alot of people have asked if sections of the planes are for sale. Does anyone know the answer?
Hi, everyone there, I am back here, want to visit it again and again but I am so far away that I can just “THINK” see it. Thanks to the internet that we atleast can watch it sitting here. I suggest they should make some arrangements for the visitors as also the planes be brought to a standard queue as the planes at the moment seem to be standing in the fighting ground.
Hi. I live in Australia and I’m interested in buying an aircraft to remodel as a ‘unique’ home. If anyone can help me, it would be greatly appreciated.
I see a lot of people have asked, but I do not see any answers. Can these planes be purchased? Please respond ASAP
do you know if in these graveyard still have parts like propellers or main weels of DC-6 transport aircraft to sell?
and what are the aprox. prices?
my pourpose is for relics in my living room
I am interested in buying an old transport plane or bomber to convert into a restaurant. Are any of these for sale for sale? Does not need to be airworthy.
Do any of these planes still Work? If so, are any for sale? is so, for how much?
Man, that is really cool. I wonder what kind of clearance/reason you would need to be able to visit. Good luck on finding a plane Mark. That is really cool idea. If you make that happen, maybe I’ll come visit you when I’m in Australia some day.
I need 2 ELT(Emergency Locator Transmitter) for A320
I am looking for unseviceable wide body aircraft pax seat. i
Hi
I was in Davis Monthan Air Force base in November 2010. It’s an amazing place, I never saw so many planes in my life, you can do a tour bus in the base but you are not allowed to stop. The tour guide is a retired USAF pilot, so he knows what is talking about.
Very very interesting you can see as well as somebody said old Titan missiles (Titan 1 and Titan 2) are stored there, south of Tucson there is the Titan missile site museum which is worth the trip.
Please forward contact information regarding Military and Commercial airframes and engines.
We recycle aircraft worldwide.
Regards,
Rick
408-466-2606
I worked at the Tucson airport in 1950. B-29s stored from WW-2 were cocooned in plastic.
The company received a contract from the US Air force to update over 200 of these B-29s.
They were towed from Davis-Monthan AFB to the plant. They stripped off the plastic from the
first B-29, and it was the WRONG airplane! The engines were replaced with overhauled ones, all
rubber items were replaced (de-icing boots, tires, etc). I worked on the radios and radar sets.
Then USAF realized that B-29s could not survive MIG attacks. We then worked on B-47 Strato-bombers built by Boeing in Wichita, KS. These were flown as shells. We installed the radars and bombing systems (nuclear). I installed electronics in the B-47 from the nose to the top of the tail fin.
Jim
Another comment. Many airlines store airliners here. When they do not need the capacity during parts of the year, they fly them to various locations and store them until needed (or sold). Many airlines lease airplanes, and the lessor will store aircraft when they come on lease. Tucson is very popular for this because of the dryness.
Jim
Does anyone know where I may find p-51 Mustang wings for sale or p-40 wings. I am trying to build a desk from them
thamks
Hi !
There are No commercial airplanes stored in Davis Monthan AFB at all, it’s only for military airplanes. The biggest storage place and graveyard for commercial airliners is in Mojave airport at Mojave in California. I go there every November to visit it, you can tour the graveyard with a little minibus but you are not allowed to take any pictures anymore. I was there 3 weeks ago they are airliners from all over the world stored there, the were actualy cutting a few 747, it’s a very impressive place. As well the airport in Victorville stored commercial airplane, evergreen in Arizona as well but it’s very difficult to see anything there.
Hi
For those interesting, all kind of planes are there, Fighters, transportations, tankers…. but no more F14 Tomcat, they were all destroyed because the F14 was sold to many countries and some of them are not to friendly anymore, so to void spare parts being sold to those places they destroyed all of them, on the back you can see the B52s cut in parts to follow the peace treaty. As well some D21 drone are there (they were lunched from special Blackbird planes, but the program was cancelled rapidly due to all kinds of problems) and you can also see some Titan1 and Titan2 ex nuclear rockets. There is as well the YC14 (the YC15 is at Edwards AFB in California in front of the west gate of the base)those planes were used for the development of the famous C17 Globemaster.
The site is divided in 2 parts, one side is the storage area and accross the bridge is the boneyard. I’m working on a website only on Davis Monthan Boneyard, I visited 2 times already, I have hundreds of pictures of this breathtaking place.
Sebastien
Give a call to “planes of Fame” in Chino (California) they have P51 Mustang, they might know where to find parts.
Hi .I want to buy an aircraft. What I want is an old twin engine two seater used as a scout in vietnam.
Can I purchase an aircraft from the bone yard?
A lot of pilots could benefit from buying parts from a boneyard and building their own aircraft.
V
Veronica, I don’t think they sell any planes to civilians. Anyway most of the planes overthere are fighting planes or huge tankers. When they sell planes it’s only for recycling purposes and it’s not one but lots of them together and to demolition businesses. But it’s doesn’t cost anything to ask !